Champions of the Bronze Buzzard

Better not linger, better not rush...

After escaping from Harrowstone Prison with Abe the Ranger of Fitch, Oathenders & Co. traveled to the dreaded Razorcrush Maze to search out a portal to the Netherworld that Ajihad used to return to our realm. Abe led the way, and soon the party found that hedge mazes aren’t just for lawn parties…

The party found the backpack of a lost adventurer, and recovered a potion of tongues, a potion of climbing, two healing potions and a scroll that contained the ritual Hand of Fate. Finnan sent his owl familiar flying over the walls of the hedge maze to try and scout a route to the center – only to be eaten by a giant venus fly trap. Long vines, razor sharp thorns, super deadly. From out of maze a rabbit came running to Finnan and offered up his services as a replacement familiar. In exchange for a piece of gold and a name, the rabbit offered to guide the party through the maze. Finnan obliged, and named him Doderick. Doderick explained that he is exceptionally magical, an excellent performer, and particularly skilled at disappearing inside of hats, caps, helmets, and other hat-like things. Doderick said that he had been tricked and bound into service by a Woods Witch, and he was ready to make a career change.

A beautiful singing voice was heard echoing through the maze. A beautiful Elf maiden introduced herself as the guardian of the maze. After a brief conversation wherein the party tried unsuccessfully to convince her that 1. She wasn’t a very good guardian since a Necromancer made it through her maze and 2. Oathenders & Co. was bound for the portal, she decided to throw down. After she called in a Treant to rough up the party. Tuan summoned his awesome flying sword, and after she tried a few invisibility tricks, the party took her down. The Treant was much tougher. Now dead, the guardian of the maze turned out to be a Green Hag. Rather nasty bit of business.

Doderick spoke of a “big guy with horns” that roamed around the maze, and led the party in a more or less direct route to the portal. Big fight with a Minotaur, and the party was ready to jump through the portal. Doderick explained that a part of the trouble with Razorcrush was that the vines moved, and the maze changed from time to time. Abe inspected the runes around the portal and declared that to enter, each adventurer must speak aloud a secret before entering. Finnan confessed he wanted to rejoin members of his family. Sybil revealed that she didn’t want to be a swordswoman anymore, and missed her life as a noble lady. Ol’ Grig confessed to killing his last commanding officer. HROTHGAR acknowledged he had a secret Gnoll family in the Gnoll kingdoms. Tuan admitted that he wasn’t truly a diplomat, that his countrymen just didn’t want to execute him. Hollis admitted that he had never finished a job. Osrik confessed that he was in love with Ilsa. Nobody heard Doderick’s secret.

One by one, Oathenders & Co. entered the portal, and ventured into the Netherworld of the Queen of Bones.

Harrowstone Prison Blues

After meeting with Stratton Silvermane, Oathenders & Co. was tasked with the quest of finding Abercrombie of Fitch, an Elven ranger in service of Barron Cathartes, recently incarcerated in the dreaded Harrowstone Gaol. Stratton explained that Amriel, the Queen of Bones was a powerful necromancer that he had fought several years ago with the Barron and a Sun Wizard named Tosa. Amriel was sealed in a nether realm, and was effectively trapped there, unable to re-enter our world. Stratton had designs to lead a Dwarven army against her forces of undead, and rout her out of her stronghold, destroying her once and for all. However, before he could gather his forces, the Barron locked her away, and closed the few portals between leading to that blasted hellscape of a dimension. Stratton didn’t agree with that plan, and this disagreement has been the source of a grudge between the Silvermanes and Barron Cathartes ever since. Stratton theorized that in exchange for his freedom, “Abe” might be willing to disclose the location of any portals, that Stratton could then use as an opportunity to destroy his old foe.

Oathenders & Co. traveled a week out of Anvilhold to the barren lands to find the legendary prison of Harrowstone in a state of chaos. A tremendous earthquake had recently destroyed a good portion of the Northeastern wall, and opened up a large sinkhole lake. Totally forgetting about the silver key to the front gates in his pocket, Osrik decided to lead the party around to the breach in the walls, and the lake, triggering the hidden hydra encounter which was supposed to be the climactic battle when the party was set to leave the prison.

Hrothgar started chopping up zombies left and right, while Sybil and the rest of the party took on the Hydra. Osrik decided to smoke a cigar and test a theory he had about the gargoyles surrounding the prison walls… which started tearing the prisoners-turned-zombies to bits. Hollis and Grig took bets on whether the last “surviving” zombie would prevail after smashing a gargoyle particularly hard. Hollis won, but decided to let this one go in exchange for some unnamed favor from Grig at a future date. Osrik unlocked the main gates, and found one surviving member of the order of special guards that run Harrowstone. Deputy Miller explained that terrible things had been going on recently, and that the Warden was dead. After a particularly rude and uncomfortable series of discussions and negotiations, during which Tuan suggested dismembering the body of Deputy Miller’s beloved boss and friend, the party learned that there were two rival prison gangs in Harrowstone. One, the Blocks, were led by Chancellor Parlell, a political prisoner sent to Harrowstone for charges of treason and attempting to overthrow the Gelatinous Cube Parliament. The other gang, the Four Dead Skulls, was led by a necromancer named Ahzihad, and his second in command was none other than Abercrombie, the Ranger of Fitch.

Finnan turned Hollis invisible to scout out the main floor of the prison, and Hollis found several zombies wandering the halls. Osrik smoked a cigar, as the rest of the party fought off a good number of zombies. Sybil started one-shotting them fairly quickly, and Hrothgar blocked four at one time from two different directions, literally pushing one of the zombies out of melee attack range – just because he can.

Hollis ran up the stairs and found the surviving members of the Blocks – prisoners that had locked themselves on the relatively safer second floor. Tuan and the disembodied voice of an invisible Hollis convinced them that they were there to rescue the Chancellor, and the Blocks agreed to tell them what they knew about the prison. Osrik and Finnan went to search the Warden’s office, finding his keys, his magic truncheon, and a chest containing a small bag of beans, weapons, armor and equipment for one Elven Ranger. *When questioned about why the guards kept the various effects and property of the confined, since Harrowstone is essentially death row and most inmates will never leave, Deputy Miller admitted that mistakes had been made.

Oathenders & Co. headed for the dungeon and Hollis saw a beautiful Boomdagger in a glass case that read “In case of emergency, break glass” in the center of the South wing of the dungeon. Then he saw the necromancer, man-bat, werewolf, basilisk, and ghost. Everyone headed to the West wing of the dungeon, and after dispatching two roaming zombies, discovered Lt. Steptoe, barely alive in the torture chamber. Grig healed him as best he could, when suddenly the Necromancer Ahzihad stepped out of a secret passage linking his cell to the West wing. A terrible and desperate fight ensued. Grig shrugged off the fear effects of Ahzihad’s aura by downing a bottle of Silvermane’s Summer Lager that Faerber gave him in Anvilhold. That kind of attention to detail really paid off. A fireball hit most of the party pretty hard, and killed Lt. Steptoe, but ultimately it was Sybil, who decided to end the battle. Whether it was the dissatisfaction with beheading various Hyrda heads, or her frustration with undead wizards in general, Lady Sybil walked up to Ahzihad, and took his head clean off.

The battle ended abruptly.

Just then a vaguely familiar voice echoed down the halls of the West wing cell block, and Abe called for help. There was some debate about whether to give Abe any of the weapons or armor that Finnan found in the Warden’s office, or whether to sell it all and use the money for ale. Abe showed the party where he had hidden Ahzihad’s phylactery – a golden skull that Tuan assessed to be both something he could sanctify and sell. Hollis pined for the Boomdagger, but when Abe explained that it was intelligent, potentially evil, and an inmate of Harrowstone known as “Odin’s Fruit Knife” he gave up hope. There was much discussion and disagreement about what to do concerning Chancellor Parlell.

Osrik disabled the ice rune on the North block floor, and the Chancellor was unfrozen. Finnan spoke a little cube, a language based on a series of subtle movements, and the conversation ranged all over. Chancellor Parlell reminded the party that nobody controls the Cubes, discussed his populist appeal in the Cube Bureaucracy, and outlined a variety of radical education, foreign, social, environmental and fiscal policies. The Chancellor clearly places a high value on freedom, opposes genocide and favors efficiency, coalition-building, and ending some indescribable policies of the majority party in the Cube Parliament. After much discussion and suspicion, Oathenders & Co. decided that Chancellor Parlell wasn’t such a bad guy, and that they would help him escape. When they asked for a reward, Chancellor Parlell promised them freedom. Which was a really good thing, because he was the only one who knew how to turn off the gargoyles. Finnan cast a frost spell on the Chancellor, and he floated slowly over the sinkhole lake, to freedom.

There was some subsequent debate on how to handle the remaining Blocks. Osrik decided to let the gargoyles take them out. Which was bloody and an extremely one-sided fight. Grig wanted xp for killing them – which was not rewarded.

Osrik debated heavily over whether or not to kill Deputy Miller. Ultimately a combination of some well-crafted lies, a tremendous body count, and a combination of the Deputy’s PTSD and gullibility led him to believe that Oathender’s & Co. had somehow managed to restore order in Harrowstone, if only by killing everything in it. Osrik gave Deputy Miller the Warden’s truncheon, and he swore to rebuild, saying that Oathender’s & Co. were heroes.

Finally, after some fast swimming and a lot of help from Oathenders & Co. Abercrombie of Fitch escaped from Harrowstone Gaol. They’re going to have a hydra problem there for a long time…

Questions and answers... and more questions

The party took a moment to regroup and plan their next move on the Eastern road before returning to Westerfield. Osrik came up with a plan to split the group to settle as many affairs in town as quickly as possible, and smuggle Ilsa to safety in the Dwarven city of Anvilhold.

Osrik and Ol’ Grig would meet with Sir Eric Viridian while Sybil and Hollis met Ilsa at the Bronze Buzzard. Tuan was to secure horses and a carriage for the journey. It was a good plan, until Tuan noticed a parliament of 24 Owlbears running through the woods. Tuan thought that sounded like cause for concern. Nobody else cared. Tuan decided to stay behind while the others made the journey back to town. He discovered that the Owlbears seemed to be fleeing, and that several of them seemed to be poisoned form giant spider bites.

Sir Eric Viridian was anxiously waiting at the town gates when the party arrived back in Westerfield. He was shocked by the deaths of the Longmeadow boys and Silas Silvermane, and decided that it was urgent to report this to Lord Hornwood. Sir Eric asked Osrik and the party to stay and help him protect Westerfield, since he believed a war party of thirty well-armed orcs, a troll, and the death of the toughest warrior in town were a bad omen. He offered the party jobs with the city watch, and to be deputized by Lord Hornwood, giving them the legitimacy and financial backing they always seemed to lack. Osrik declined his offer, and Sir Eric paid him the promised seven gold for investigating the fire in the woods.

Osrik took the bodies to the Ford & Son’s, the town undertaker. Ford explained that he could prepare the bodies with a spell, and charged Osrik a good amount of money for his work. He also mentioned that Boot Hill Cemetery was the traditional burial grounds of the Longmeadow family, and expressed some concern that the boys were cut down in their youth. Ford said that his father knew more about the Longmeadow’s family crypt than he did, but that their ancestors were buried in that graveyard. After a tense meeting, and a surcharge for a rush job, he took Osrik’s gold and went to work.

Meanwhile Hollis and Sybil went to tell Ilsa the bad news. Hollis proved to be the worst grief counsellor in the realm, but Ilsa took great comfort from Lady Sybil. Hollis told Ilsa that everyone knew she was pregnant and who the baby’s daddy was, that she was in mortal danger, that people were coming to kill her, that she had to abandon her bar, her home, her family and friends, and that literally no one could protect her. Then he really started making things up, so badly that several other players were legitimately confused as to what was going on. Ultimately, Ilsa demanded to see the bodies, and speak with Osrik. At Ford and Son’s she demanded to know why Hollis claimed she was in danger. Osrik explained that the party knew she was pregnant, and believe her child to be the last heir of the Longmeadow family. After a few moments alone with Gavin’s corpse, she agreed to go to Anvilhold.

Ol’ Grig went with Sir Eric to meet Lord Hornwood, only he didn’t. Lord Hornwood was indisposed, so instead he met with Carson Hornwood, Lord Hornwood’s son. Carson Hornwood wore too much jewelry and was a bit of a ponce. He seemed not to care about the orc threat that the party had taken out, but expressed tremendous grief at the death of the Longmeadows. Carson said that he trusted Sir Eric to protect Westerfield, and that dead orcs and rumors of dark forces were not enough to concern his family. Ol’ Grig gave Sir Eric the axes taken from the dead orcs, and told him about the 17 remaining horsemen from Calvera’s forces around Kitsumura. As he was leaving the Hornwood estate, Ol’ Grig heard the voice of the Queen of Bones say “Another piece moves in position.” He went back to the Bronze Buzzard to have a drink.

Tuan arrived in town much later, delayed by his investigation of the parliament of Owlbears. He met with Walter, the stable master in Westerfield. Tuan managed to haggle Walter down a bit, and bought a private carriage and a team of horses for six gold. Walter brought the horses to the Bronze Buzzard later.

Hollis met with Byron Redfoot who displayed that he had some kind of scrying or detect magic in his shop. While Hollis didn’t reveal the Stones of Stiglitz he was wearing, he did make mention of Lunacrist, suggesting he had hidden the axe with an illusion spell. Redfoot offered him 25,000 gold for the axe, but Hollis declined. Redfoot then registered the party as Oathenders & Co. an official adventuring company.

Oathenders & Co. made for Anvilhold the next morning, and arrived safely three days later. After a brief investigation, they were introduced to Faerber Silvermane, the Brewmaster of Anvilhold and cousin of Silas. Faerber brought them to the great hall of Anvilhold, and at last Oathenders & Co. met with Lord Stratton Silvermane. Almost immediately, Dugan Silvermane, Stratton’s most trusted advisor, detected the iron collar that Osrik carried. Dugan cast the collar into Stratton’s scrying pool, and as steam rose from the water, so appeared an image of the Queen of Bones. Stratton called her “Amriel” and said that her assassins had failed, and that the collars would not work on him, she would never wield him as a weapon, that his will was resolute. Stratton said that he knew she was responsible for the hit on Silas and the Longmeadow boys. He told her that he would kill a thousand spiders to pay for Silas. She laughed at him and asked if he still prayed by the pale moonlight. Stratton said that she could stab at him from the shadows, but that she would never return to the realm, and that if it wasn’t for that fool of a Barron and his Sun Wizard, he would have destroyed her years ago. She laughed in mockery and said “All in good time Stratton.” With that he smashed the collar with his hammer.

Dugan explained that the collars are used not only for control, but also for communication. Stratton asked how much of Oathenders & Co.‘s counsel she had overheard. Osrik was forced to admit she had heard everything. There was an awkward silence, and Stratton asked Hollis to give up the Stones of Stiglitz, calling them his mother’s necklace. Hollis hesitated, and when he consulted the stones for their wisdom his reply was “Why worry about your necklace, when your head is about to be cut off?” Then Hollis decided to give up the necklace.

Stratton asked if he understood the situation correctly, that Oathenders & Co. had brought a dangerous relic (that at worst could take control of his mind and at the least was an open channel to a mortal enemy) into his city, or rather into his hall, carrying his brother’s corpse, bringing news that two boys he had spent the last twenty years protecting were dead, while one of them was wearing his mother’s necklace and another (indicating Sybil) was wearing the sigil of his rival.

Looks like this troll could use a hand.

In the middle of the night, Sir Eric Viridian rushed into the Bronze Buzzard looking for the party. Fires were spotted on the East road, and Sir Eric lacked the men to investigate. He agreed to pay the party one gold apiece to find out what happened.

Arriving just before dawn, our heroes discovered a severed troll’s arm in the middle of the road. Surrounding a broken wagon were roughly twenty dead orcs, and in the middle laid the broken body of Silas Silvermane. The party quickly found Rowan Longmeadow, dead beside a burning tree. Following a trail of blood into the trees, Hollis found Gavin Longmeadow, bleeding from a dozen wounds, clutching a diamond ring and a lock of Ilsa’s hair. His last words were “Tell Ilsa, I’m sorry I never got to take her to the harvest dance.” Searching the arrow, and their fallen friends, Hollis recovered several drafts of a toast, and a necklace of incredible power from the body of Silas Silvermane. Six topaz gems made up the Stones of Stiglitz, a Dwarven treasure that contained the charisma and wisdom of Dwarven scholars and archmages.

Several orcs came rushing out of the woods, and the party formed up behind the wagon. A quick fight took out the orcs, and the party even managed to take a prisoner. However, before they were able to question him, the iron collar set with an onyx that he wore around his neck, appeared to strangle him. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Totally abandoning the bodies of their fallen friends, the party decided to follow a trail South, and hopefully catch the troll responsible for the death of the Longmeadows and Silas Silvermane. Hrothgar was able to track them easily, to a lair in the mountains. For the first time in this group’s history – everything went according to plan.

With a quick combination of scouting and Finnan’s illusion magic, the party lured the two orcs standing watch at the mouth of the cave into the open. Osrik and Hollis put them down quickly with their bows. Hollis scouted parts of the cave along with an invisible Tuan, and they discovered two chambers, one with several orcs, and a smaller chamber to the side. Ol’ Grig put together a bundle of kindling that effectively blocked the corridor to the right with a blaze of fire, and Hollis rolled a crit on a stealth check to discover he was alarmingly close to the one-armed troll. The enormous one-armed troll. Wasting no time, Hrothgar rushed in to tank the troll. Finnan unleashed every acid arrow in his arsenal for some wicked damage, and kept the troll from effectively regenerating. Ol’ Grig displayed a surprisingly nasty necrotic spell inflicting wounds, and Hollis got the kill with a fire arrow from the back. Osrik’s crossbow missed several times.

Distressingly, killing a troll seemed to be the easy part of this adventure. The battered party, still had to contend with the other part of the cave, and still hadn’t found Silas Silvermane’s legendary axe “Lunacrist.”

Turning their attentions to the Eastern corridor, Ol’ Grig began singing a racially offensive song about orcs. Nobody called HR. Two more orcs were cut down in no time. Then the wights got into the fight. Awesomely, Hollis hit one with a color spray, which totally saved Ol’ Grig’s life. I can’t stress that enough here. Tuan was out of spells, and got hit for some nasty wight drain, but held it together long enough for the party to take them down. For the first time, having two clerics in the party paid off.

Facing off with the orc shaman, Sybil started slashing her way to glory, when Osrik had an idea. Osrik noticed that the shaman was wearing an iron collar, and put it together that these collars can be fatal to the wearers. Sound logic from the brains of the operation. Osrik tried to grapple the orc shaman, and failed his roll miserably. Hollis stole Osrik’s plan, and rolled extremely well, preserved the collar and liquified the shaman’s head. Thus the climactic and most difficult planned encounter of the adventure was cut short. Osrik had hoped to interrogate the shaman, who only said “The collars don’t come off,” before screaming for his life.

Everyone botched their checks to figure out the glamour trap, but Finnan was clever enough to realize the iron key on the shaman was somehow related. That was enough to reveal a chest with 20 gold, and the missing axe, Lunacrist. Lunacrist spoke to Osrik and after thanking him for avenging Silas Silvermane’s murder, instructed him to return her to Anvilhold, and to find Stratton.

The party formulated plans concerning their next moves. Everyone decided to split up and pursue different jobs that suited their strengths. The party settled on a name, calling themselves Oathenders and Company. Gathering up the bodies of their dead friends, they started the sad walk back to Westerfield.

Truly Gritty

Ruthie Greenfield has been waiting for the party to return from their battles in Kitsumura. She is the daughter of Jonas Greenfield, the corpse that was the star of a previous adventure to Boot Hill Cemetery.

Ruthie offers the party fifty gold to track down and get her father’s killer, a hired man named Jessup. After some investigation and a friendly conversation with Eric Viridian, Osrik learns that Jessup has fallen in with a notorious group of bandits lead by a master thief named Blondie. Hollis knows that Blondie is a dangerous operator, and his crew is not to be underestimated. Hollis also knows they pulled a major job against a caravan from the merchant’s guild, and negotiates a 10% commission on any recovered goods through Byron Redfoot and the thieves guild. Hollis also knows where the hideout is.

A full week’s worth of travel to the South, the party finds the caverns. Tuan turned Hollis invisible so he could scout the caves. A group of giant spiders attacked the party in the entryway in a surprisingly difficult battle that left Ol’ Grig scorched, and Osrik burned to death. Hrothgar held off three giant spiders without getting poisoned himself, but struggled to land a blow. The party found a winch and chain and holed up to regroup and plan their next move.

Hollis found Blondie and his gang in the main cavern. A desperate fight ensued, during which Fah De, Blondie’s crazy Drow girlfriend summoned her “babies” to attack the heroes. Blondie tried to cut a deal and save himself, but Finnan responded to his pleas with a ray of frost.

Osrik and Hrothgar managed to decode a letter written in Dwarvish silver runes they found on Blondie’s body. Hollis recovered a ring that marked Blondie as an elite thief. The party searched further for Jessup.

They found him, being eaten by Squishy, who turned out to be a gelatinous cube. Disregarding the potential consequences of offending the Gelatinous Cube Parliament, the party fought the cube, and rescued Jessup. Then Osrik killed him with a wrench. Hollis grabbed the fox fur cloak that Jessup stole from Jonas Greenfield.

The party found a treasure chest from the merchant caravan guarded by two statutes. After some investigation, the party determined that one demanded a sacrifice of blood and the other a sacrifice of money. Tuan spent five gold on one, while Osrik sawed off Fah De’s head for the other. The party grabbed the chest, and moved on to investigate the strange hole with the chain winch.

Dangling Hollis like bait, they discovered an Ogre that Blondie had been rumored to work with. Hollis and Sybil fought him bravely, while the rest of the party fired ranged attacks from the upper level. Sybil nearly drowned when the Ogre fell on her. Nobody found Blondie’s treasure. The party determined they had killed everything in the cave, and recovered the merchant’s goods, but thoughts were grim concerning the contents of Stratton’s letter and everyone returned to Westerfield.

The almost magnificent six

After returning from the success of Boot Hill Cemetery, the villagers of Westerfield are impressed by the party’s courage and strength. Ilsa gave the party a flask of Silvermane’s Special Cider – said to have magical healing properties that could save someone from the brink of death. Three wretchedly poor farmers from the village of Kitsumura begged Tuan and the others to defend them against a ravaging bandit named Calvera. For the price of 5 silver apiece and three square meals a day, the party travelled to Kitsumura to save the farmers from exploitation, but not before Osrik made one of them cry.

While inspecting the village, our heroes met with Gisaku, the village elder, who explained that Kitsumura was once the summer home of a noble Elven family that had long since abandoned the area. Several members of the party began making preparations for Calvera’s arrival, and Tuan developed a sound plan to trap him by the ancient Elven gate in the middle of town. In an impromptu change of plans, Tuan met Calvera at the bridge on the outskirts of town.

In a surprising exchange in Elvish, Calvera explained that his thirty mounted spearmen patrolled the mountains surrounding Kitsumura, and protected the farmers from a variety of threats including wolves, owl-bears, goblins and other darker things. Calvera proclaimed that Kitsumura was under his protection and after a short fight concluded that his town had been invaded by evil wizards. Calvera escaped, but one of his men was taken hostage.

Then Osrik built a catapult.

Finnan interrogated the hostage, who was totally freaked out and explained several important things. First, that Calvera was a barbarian from distant lands, a tremendous warrior and a great leader. Second, that he had been cursed long ago by an evil sorcerer so that he could not speak the common tongue. Third, that his company called themselves the Mountain Spears, and would follow Calvera against any foe.

The battle for Kitsumura was bloody and pitched. Osrik’s catapult and Hollis’s bow took out a great number of riders at the bridge. Sybil and Tuan tried to hold the north bank, but took lots of damage. Ol’ Grig ran headlong and solo against a group of ten flanking spearmen who came out of the woods to the north. Grig also got several elderly farmers killed. The battle was very close, but ultimately Calvera fell. Unfortunately, he was also the only one in any position to order a retreat, a key point that nobody in the party seemed to consider before throwing literally everything they had against just that one guy. A rescued hostage told his comrades they needed to withdraw immediately, and the surviving 17 riders escaped into the forest.

Tuan drank all of Silvermane’s Special Cider.

An image of the Queen of Bones appeared through the smoke of the burning bridge and claimed Calvera’s body as a prize, saying that she had followed him and his strength for a long time. Sybil cut his head off before she could take the body, and the Queen of Bones called her a bitch and said “I’ll say hello to your husband for you.” Then the image of her and Calvera’s body vanished in the smoke.

The party collected their 5 silver apiece and returned to Kitsumura, somewhat discouraged.

Never rode shotgun on a hearse before...

Hired by two merchants, Statler & Storch for 10 silver, the party transports the body of Jonas Greenfield to Boot Hill Cemetery. The party also joins up with a local thief named Hollis Undertoe who claims that according to legend, there is a great treasure buried somewhere in Boot Hill Cemetery. Lady Fahnhorst also informs Finnan in no uncertain terms that a death cult of Orcus worshippers has taken up residence in the cemetery. Ilsa gave the party two treasures, one a bronze medallion depicting a buzzard and the other a magical bronze warhorn. She said that the medallion would summon a dire vulture that would help the party in combat. Ilsa also explained that Sir Eric Viridian wanted people to raise an alarm if things got out of hand, and that whenever the heroes blow the horn, help would answer. Someone botched an arcana roll and the party never determined what magical properties the horn possesses.

Three cultists and half a dozen zombies were no match for the party, and were taken out quickly.

Oddly, the cultists were wearing iron collars with black onyx stones around their necks. Ol’ Grig was clever to mutilate the bodies before they could rise, and consecrate the cemetery grounds before any additional undead minions were summoned. A strange encounter with the collar left Ol’ Grig somewhat unsettled, as it tried to latch onto his neck, and then displayed the image of a powerful necromancer calling herself the Queen of Bones, who recognized him… and offered him a job.

The party was able to cleanse the cemetery and bury Greenfield without further disruption, but was unable to recover the treasure.

Some guys walk into a bar...

A rowdy night at the Bronze Buzzard. Spirits are high as the Longmeadow brothers and Silas Silvermane announce that they’ve gotten their harvest in. Cheers and drinks all around.

The farmers enjoy a few tales and songs from Ol’ Grig and keep the ale flowing. Finnan Galerider makes a few coppers with his best card tricks and the shell game. Everyone is in a fine mood, but the Longmeadow boys are getting a bit out of hand.

After Gavin Longmeadow started teasing and chasing Ilsa around the bar, Hrothgar decided to step in. A quick brawl with the Longmeadow brothers and Silas Silvermane ended with Finnan hiding in the back, and some new bruises. Hollis Undertoe watched this fight with great amusement, and did not lend a hand to either side, keeping well out of danger. Ilsa put a stop to the fight before too much furniture was broken, and Silas agreed to an arm-wrestling contest with Hrothgar. Silas won, but had such a good time he kept buying ales and seemed to respect the Oathender brothers. Silas explained that he’s leaving town the next morning for Anvilhold to sell his barely.

After last call and the party has gone to bed, Finnan Galerider crept from his hiding spot only to catch Ilsa and Gavin Longmeadow in each other’s arms. Go figure.

A blog for your campaign

While the wiki is great for organizing your campaign world, it’s not the best way to chronicle your adventures. For that purpose, you need a blog!

The Adventure Log will allow you to chronologically order the happenings of your campaign. It serves as the record of what has passed. After each gaming session, come to the Adventure Log and write up what happened. In time, it will grow into a great story!

Best of all, each Adventure Log post is also a wiki page! You can link back and forth with your wiki, characters, and so forth as you wish.

One final tip: Before you jump in and try to write up the entire history for your campaign, take a deep breath. Rather than spending days writing and getting exhausted, I would suggest writing a quick “Story So Far” with only a summary. Then, get back to gaming! Grow your Adventure Log over time, rather than all at once.